Windwitch

by Susan Dennard

  “I heard it too.” The boy clutched at the bars. “They’ll kill everyone we love, destroy our home. Just like that.” He shook the bars for emphasis.

  And as he shook, the bars melted wide. Wide enough for him to step through.

  He gasped, recoiling. Then all eyes shot to Vaness, even Safi’s, but the Ironwitch gave no reaction beyond an imperious command. “Warn your people,” she said. “And stop the Raider King.” Then she turned to go.

  “Wait!” Safi called. “You must free them all!”

  Vaness pretended not to hear; the roars doubled.

  “Please!” Safi lunged after her. “Both pirate factions are anchored for Baile’s Slaughter, Empress! They won’t set sail until tomorrow—we could leave this place in shambles.”

  Still, Vaness stalked on. She was almost to the archway. Almost gone.

  “Think of your Adders!”

  At that name, the empress finally stopped. Finally swiveled back, her face expressionless. Iron through and through. Up swept Vaness’s left hand, as if she would ask Safi to dance. Then magic charged to life. It crashed over Safi, hot and alive, while a hundred locks groaned open at once. On doors, on shackles, on collars.

  Between one breath and the next, the famed slave arena, where warriors and witches battled for coin, became a fight to simply stay alive.

  Baile’s Slaughter had begun.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Hello, old friend. Hello, old friend. It was a rhythm to stumble by while Merik followed Vivia ever upward. Ragged breaths and the occasional burst of distant waves broke the silence, while wavering green fungus lit their way.

  Hello, old friend.

  Merik’s feet dragged to a stop. Limestone gravel crunched beneath his boots. He snapped his head side to side, and water droplets splattered to the stone.

  Vivia glanced back, strips of wet hair plastered across her forehead. “Are you hurt … Merry?” It was the first words spoken since she’d hauled him from the flood.

  He offered nothing in return. There was nothing to say.

  Hello, old friend.

  Merik had seen his Threadbrother cleave in Lejna. He had seen the corruption burn through Kullen, and he had watched as Kullen flew off to die alone. People didn’t return from that. People didn’t come back from the dead.

  Except … they did. They had. Garren Leeri, Serrit Linday—

  Merik shook himself again. Harder this time. Almost frantic—legs! He felt legs scuttling over him. He grabbed at his scalp, at his neck. Something crawled on him. Shadows to take control, darkness that lived inside—

  Vivia smacked his shoulder.

  He rocked back, fists rising.

  “Spider,” she blurted. “There was a spider on you.” She pointed to the hairy thing, now trickling up the wall.

  For several distant heartbeats, Merik watched the creature, his heart a battering ram in his throat. Shadows. Darkness. Spiders. None of it had been real. Of course it had not been real.

  He forced himself to nod at his sister, a signal to keep moving. She hesitated, her lips opening as if she wanted to say more. There was nothing to say, though, so she cleared her throat and resumed jogging.

  The tunnel came to an end. Vivia clambered up a rope ladder. Then light seared down, forcing Merik to squint at a square opening above. With the sun came fresh air, fresh wind, fresh fuel for the heat and the temper that had kept him fed for days.

  Merik let it come. Let it ripple over him like thunder before a storm. Darkness might live inside him, but right now, he could rise above.

  He ascended, winds gusting beneath him. No ladder needed, and rope streaming past. Until the gray light of day brushed over him. Until he was out of the tunnel and surrounded by hedges and ivy.

  Leaves rattled, branches thrashed. Wind from his own cyclone as well as wind from a darker gale gathering overhead. Merik flew higher, clearing the plants before finally touching down beside a pond. It splashed with each gusting sweep of his magic.

  His mother’s garden. He hadn’t been here in so long. It was overgrown and rippling with shadows, the weeping willow dunking its branches into the pond over and over again.

  “Merry, you’re hurt,” Vivia said. She stood beside the marble bench, body squared to the gate but gaze lingering back. Wind hurtled through the cattails behind her, yet her waterlogged uniform barely moved.

  Was this actually his sister before him? When Merik stared at her, he saw none of her swagger. None of her condescending strength or self-righteous Nihar temper.

  Merik saw, in fact, his mother.

  A lie, though. A trick. Just as what he’d seen below had not been Kullen.

  “Your stomach,” Vivia added. “And your leg.”

  Merik’s eyes sank to a hole in his shirt, a hole in his breeches. Blackened, bloodied marks peeked through. He’d been hit by those arrows at the Cleaved Man; he remembered now. He pressed his fingers to the blood, but no pain followed. He felt only puckered skin below. It had already scabbed over.

  “I’m fine,” he said at last. His hands fell away. “But Cam. I need…” Merik trailed off. He didn’t know what he needed. He was cast adrift. Aimless. Sinking beneath the waves.

  The holiest always have the farthest to fall.

  For weeks, he’d been hunting for evidence that his sister had killed him. For weeks he had wanted that evidence, so he could prove once and for all that her approach to leadership was wrong—and Merik’s approach was right.

  That was the truth of it right there, wasn’t it? He’d seen what he’d wanted to see, even though, in the deepest furrows of his mind, he’d known Vivia was not the enemy. He had simply needed someone to blame for his own failings.

  The enemy was himself.

  “Your friend,” Vivia said, mooring him back in the present. “The girl? I sent her to Pin’s Keep. We can go there, but I need to tell the Royal Forces what’s happening underground—” She broke off, her forehead suddenly creasing. She twisted toward the gate, toward the city.

  Then Merik heard it too. A wind-drum was pounding, its song almost lost to the black tempest overhead, where lightning crackled from a spinning heart.

  A second drum joined in, then a third, until a hundred wind-drums hammered across Lovats. Louder than the winds, louder than the madness.

  Attack at Northern Wharf, their cadence bellowed. All forces needed. Attack at Northern Wharf.

  Merik didn’t even think. He sucked in his magic, a wind to fly him fast and fly him far. He scooped it beneath his sister’s feet, beneath his own.

  Then together, the Nihars flew for the Northern Wharf. The gardens shrank back, revealing grounds that crawled with humanity. The streets of Lovats crawled too, like a tide carves through the sand leaving rivulets of water to chase behind.

  Everyone ran in the same direction. Away from the Northern Wharf, away from the pluming smoke—black, choking, unnatural. It swept over the harbor, erasing all details. A cloud to burn through everything.

  Yet the closer Merik and Vivia flew, the more Merik caught glimpses of what caused the smoke—of the black flames, spreading fast, with cores of pure, boiling white.

  Seafire.

  Merik had heard tales of entire fleets burned to ash atop frothy waves. Seafire ate through everything, and water only spread its reach. His own ship had succumbed to it—he had succumbed to it—and more ships burned now. Docks too, and buildings that hugged the wharf.

  If the storm swirling above finally broke, then nothing could stop this fire from claiming the city.

  Merik’s eyes streamed as he strained to see where, amid the smoke and wildness, the Royal Forces charged. He fell lower, Vivia tumbling behind him. Then lower still until he caught sight of a blockade forming at the end of Hawk’s Way. Stone and sand piled higher, higher, blocking the river. Blocking the streets.

  It held back the seafire.

  Before Merik could reach the blockade, a familiar whisper trailed down the back of his neck. A leash being pulled. A reel bei
ng tightened.

  His flight slowed. He flung his gaze back. Toward the storm’s eye. Toward a slithering darkness that tentacled down into the city.

  The shadow man.

  “What is it?” Vivia screamed over Merik’s winds. Her uniform flapped—dry now—and her hair fanned in all directions. She wobbled and grasped at air.

  “It’s the shadow man,” Merik answered. He didn’t shout, but he didn’t need to. Vivia had already seen, had already understood.

  She didn’t argue when Merik swooped them lower—faster, faster, smoke rushing over their faces—only to release her near the blockade.

  Nor did she argue when Merik didn’t land beside her. When instead he spun away, riding an updraft of thick, flaming air back toward the rooftops.

  Rain began to fall.

  * * *

  Vivia hit the ground. Shock pummeled through her heels, ankles, knees. She almost fell, but soldiers were there to catch her, to help her to rise. Then they pointed her to the nearest man in charge.

  Vizer Sotar.

  Stix’s father towered above all others, bellowing commands at Windwitch officers lined beside the blockade. “We must keep the stones dry! Keep the smoke back!”

  Spotting Vivia, he charged over. Lines of smoke-clogged rain ran down his face.

  “Update me,” Vivia ordered, as soldiers and civilians scurried past, carting stones and bricks for the blockade.

  They carted bodies too. Some still living and screaming, but most charred beyond recognition.

  “Our Voicewitches received word from Saldonica,” Sotar shouted, “that a ship was on its way with Baedyeds and seafire. We instantly halted all river traffic, but we were too late.” He pointed to where the river fed into the Northern Wharf. “The ship was already here, and when we tried to board for a search, a hose appeared. Seafire started spraying.”

  “What ship?” Vivia demanded, having to pitch her voice louder. Having to cover her nose and mouth against the smoke. “How did it get past the Sentries?”

  “It’s one of our ships, Highness! A two-masted warship—one that you had authorized yourself.”

  Vivia recoiled. “I authorized it? I didn’t…” Oh. But she had. A Fox ship with two masts. A Fox ship that had gone missing off the cost of Saldonica.

  “It’s sailing onto the water-bridge now!” Sotar continued. “We fear it heads for the dam, but we haven’t been able to stop it! Every Windwitch we’ve sent out there has not returned.”

  Vivia nodded mutely. The rain, the smoke, the heat and the noise—it all settled into a dull background buzz.

  No regrets, she tried to tell herself. Keep moving. There had to be a solution here. A way to stop the ship before it reached the dam. And yet …

  For half a smoky heartbeat, the world around her smudged into a vague cityscape suffocating with jagged black flames. She doubled over. The cobblestones of Hawk’s Way wavered.

  She did have regrets. Thousands of them, and the weight was too heavy for her to keep moving. She was a ship that could not sail, for its anchor—its thousands of anchors—locked it to the sea floor.

  “Highness!” Sotar was beside her, saying something. Trying to lift her. She didn’t hear, she didn’t care.

  Ever since her mother’s death, Vivia had tried to be something she was not. She had worn mask after mask, hoping one of them would eventually take root. Hoping one of them would force out the emptiness that lived inside her.

  Instead, the regrets had built and gathered and swelled. Feeding the emptiness until it could not be denied.

  And now … Now look at what Vivia had done. This conflagration, this death—it was her doing. She had started the Foxes. She had stolen the weapons that had allowed her fleet to grow too bold.

  And she, Vivia Nihar, had left her brother to die. She couldn’t outrun that truth any longer. Just as she could not outrun these flames.

  “Get a healer for her highness!” Sotar shouted. He tried again to lift her, but Vivia resisted. Anchored. Stuck.

  Until she heard him say, “We already lost Prince Merik! We cannot lose the princess as well—get her to safety.”

  Prince Merik. The name slipped through Vivia’s awareness, settled over her heart and stilled her muscles. For they had not lost Prince Merik, and Vivia had not lost her brother.

  The one with true Nihar blood boiling in his veins was still alive and fighting, for Merik could no more sit still than she could. That remained true, and at least, in that one characteristic, Vivia was like her father. She was like Merik.

  And there it was—that was who she was. Split right down the middle, she bore her father’s strength, her father’s drive. She carried her mother’s compassion, her mother’s love for Nubrevna.

  As that certainty settled over Vivia’s heart, she knew exactly what she had to do. It was time to be the person she should have been all along.

  She straightened, breaking free from Sotar’s grasp, and in a burst of speed, Vivia charged for the blockade. There was a gap in the stones on the left. She could pass through. She could reach the wharf. She could reach the ship before its seafire and rage spread any further.

  Sotar hollered for her to stop. “The fire will kill you!”

  Of course it would. Vivia knew that death awaited her on the water-bridge. Those black, unnatural flames would hit her skin and burn, unsated, until they hit the bone.

  But Vivia also knew that she could not leave thousands of people—her people—to die. If the dam broke, the seafire would only spread. First the city would burn. Then the city would drown.

  Vivia dove headfirst into the wharf. Through smoke, through flame, until she was too far below for the seafire’s bite to reach her.

  Then she swam as fast as her magic would carry her onto the northern water-bridge.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Iseult’s heart had never pounded harder.

  Surely the men around her could hear it. Surely they saw it fluttering through her body, one booming beat after the next.

  Twelve men stood around her. Nine from the shore, three from the trees. One had his boot planted mere paces away, and a sound like steel on a whetstone shivered into Iseult’s ears. He was sharpening his knife.

  She had splayed her hair and lifted her collar as best she could to cover her pale skin. It didn’t keep away the flies. They crawled on her ears and hands. Even down the back of her neck and into her cloak.

  She didn’t move. She just breathed as shallowly as she could through parted lips.

  The men were silent, waiting. Then the final man joined them. Even with her eyes closed, Iseult sensed his Threads of violent gray and of flaming red. Firewitch. He was the man in charge, for the instant he arrived, the others’ Threads turned mossy green with deference.

  The Firewitch tromped through the slaughter. “They have the child.”

  “The Baedyeds?” asked the man with his boot nearby. He leaned deeper into his stance; bones crunched.

  “Who else is there?” Heat curled out as the Firewitch spoke, as if he sent fire coiling along each word. His Threads certainly flashed with the orange tendrils of fire magic at play.

  “I thought,” spoke a third man, his accent thick, “that Ragnor had told only us about the child.”

  “And Ragnor clearly lied.” The Firewitch was closer now. Iseult sensed his Threads, heard his breaths as he nosed around the corpses, like a dog on the hunt.

  Her heart banged harder. She was definitely shaking. Please don’t come here. Please don’t come here.

  “Maybe,” said the first speaker, “the Baedyeds don’t know what they’ve found. Maybe they took her by accident.”

  “And killed seven of ours to get her?”

  Owl, Iseult realized—and fast on its heels came another thought: Aeduan killed seven men.

  The Firewitch snooped closer. He’d found something he liked. His Threads flared with interest and desire.

  Then fire whooshed out. Heat seared against the side of Iseult’s face.


  The man with the boot rocked back, hissing curses.

  The Firewitch simply laughed, and a smell like burned hair slithered into Iseult’s nose. He was burning the corpses.

  “Stop,” said the man with the boot, his Threads paling into beige revulsion. “The Baedyeds will see the smoke.”

  “Does that matter?” the Firewitch snapped. Though he did clap his hands, and the fire did wink out. Only the smell and a hiss-pop! left behind. “We could win their ships. And their horses. All of Saldonica, even, if we attack now. All at once, while the Baedyeds are unprepared.”

  At those words, every set of Threads in the area bruised into hungry shades of violet. They wanted what the Baedyeds had.

  “But what of Ragnor?” asked a new voice. “What of the child?”

  “We reclaim the child, and we sell her. If her magic is so valuable that Ragnor wants it, surely someone else will want it too.”

  Another shiver of agreement ran through their Threads. Yet although the men spoke on, Iseult stopped hearing. She couldn’t listen, for the Firewitch was now stepping toward her.

  The whole world shriveled down to his boots closing in on her left. One pace, two.

  Then he was there. He stepped on her arm, and her mind erupted with white. Her lungs strained. She couldn’t inhale, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The urge to open her eyes scored through her muscles.

  The Firewitch knelt—more a sense than anything else, for Iseult couldn’t see him. Couldn’t watch as his knee dug into her elbow, shoving the joint in a way it was never meant to be shoved.

  She heard each of his breaths. Harsh exhales that smelled like smoke and dead things. Closer. He was leaning in closer, his fingers grabbing onto her salamander cloak—

  A horn ripped through the air. Deep, rumbling, and shimmering with blood lust.

  As one, the Threads around Iseult flashed with turquoise surprise. Then came tan confusion. So quick, it was almost lost before crimson fury took hold.

  Then a cannon sounded—once. Twice.

  The Firewitch released Iseult’s cloak, pushing to his feet. Snarling and with flames licking out to gust over Iseult. Still she moved not a muscle.